Letter to my father

Posted on November 11, 2011 by helena

I have just got back from Italy where I was visiting my father, who is ill in hospital. He will be 87 in December, but it was still a shock to see him so weak and, well OLD, for the first time ever.
I wrote him a letter on the way back to the airport because there was so much I wanted to say. I call him biologico, because by the time I really got to know him, it was too late for daddy.

Here it is in parts…

Caro Biologico

I’m not sure I will ever send you this letter, but I want to write it anyway, because there are so many things I want to say to you and to remember about this visit, which I don’t know how else to express.

We said goodbye three hours ago. I left you, in your wheelchair, with my mother standing beside you, you were pulling a face and she was waving, smiling, trying not to cry. You looked like any other old couple in the hospital; grey and wrinkly and together. No one would have guessed you haven’t been together since I was two. As a child all I ever wanted was to have normal parents who were together, to have you both in the same room, to be able to say “my parents” and not follow it with “split up when I was two”. Of course there is nothing “normal” about either of you, thank god, but as a child for some reason normality was all I craved. As an adult I’m grateful to you both that I never had it.

I don’t know what I expected, in what state I thought I would find you, but I certainly didn’t think you would be so THIN. You’ve never been thin. I remember those zany diets you used to do, the ‘eat only grapes for a week’ diet and then how you would give something up, like chocolate, and say “for me chocolate does not exist.”

There were times when you got quite fat, but you always carried it off, with that elegant stance and the ubiquitous Fedora hat. Now that hat sits on your bookshelf at home.

And talking of elegance, you still look like an aristocrat, even in a wheelchair. You hold your head high as you always did, and your eyes are still sparkling, intelligent. You don’t belong there. I know it’s not their fault, the staff probably try their best, but the smell of shit and death and OLD PEOPLE is stultifying. I fear if you stay, you will just sink further into that world, to a point of no return.

I hate seeing you like this. It makes me want to give up my job and move to Novafeltria to take care of you, I just believe that somehow if I could get you back to your work, you would be cured, because I’m sure not being able to write is literally killing you. You always told me never to go a day without writing; nulla dies sine linea, you once wrote on a scrap of paper, I have it framed on my wall at home.

You did talk about finishing your novel. I so hope you do. But maybe that’s unrealistic, because if we’re honest, only really about ten per cent of you is present. It’s so depressing seeing flashes of your old self; your humour, your brilliance, your intellect, and realizing that it is buried deep down now and may never surface again. I know your mind still works, but you can’t articulate as you used to. When I told you that I had done some writing at your desk, you said the longest sentence you had said to me during the entire three days; “Mi fa piacere.” You probably wouldn’t say that if you’d known what I was writing, another “shitting” novel as you would call it.

And when I told you that one of my books is going to be published in Germany, your face lit up. You know the importance of the German publishing market, something the cabbages around you (bless them) wouldn’t have known when they were compos mentis.

You reaction to Olivia was lovely. The way you stroked her face last night when we were leaving made me cry, and I cry every time I think about it. I suppose because you were saying goodbye. Her reaction has been surprising, she doesn’t really know you that well, and yet has wept and keeps saying she doesn’t want to leave you.

I have used many words to describe you, in books, in articles, to other people. Words like brilliant, bullying, egotistic, charming, larger-than-life, amusing. One word I would never have used is the word that best sums you up now; sweet. I have never seen you so affectionate and kind. Your smile is really sweet now, I don’t know what’s happened, I like it, but I would rather have the old Biologico who tells Olivia she speaks French “comme une vache Espagnol” and harasses me for not writing “proper” books.

But your new sweetness seems to have won you many admirers there, I have never seen a man made such a fuss of, you really are among friends. Carmela is a joy, as is Agostina, and I can’t believe the old woman with a hole in her leg up the hall was the chicken keeper at Carpegna, your old summer house.

Do you remember when we first went there? The chicken farmer said she remembers me being very brave on a vast horse. I wasn’t brave, I was terrified. Not only of the horse, but of you and this whole new family I knew nothing about. Now when I come back, especially on this trip, names and places like Perticara and Malatesta feel like they’re part of me, I get a sense of belonging from this part of Italy, which I suppose it what you were always trying to instill in me with all your talk of “radice.”

This summer when we were all with my mother, you told the children, when they asked why you didn’t have any eyebrows, that you cut them off and sent them to your enemies, who eat them and then die. Yesterday I cut your eyebrows, I can’t bear all that sprouting hair. There is plenty to kill all your enemies, though I think you have probably outlived them all, and now you’re so sweet, you probably won’t make any more.

When I had finished, I handed you a mirror. You looked in it and said “grazie” very firmly. It’s good to see there’s still a certain amount of vanity going on, it makes me hope that you’re not about to give up.

I am already beginning to regret that we didn’t spend more time together. I had a plan to come and see you at Christmas, to interview you and to have Bea film our discussions. There are so many things I want to talk to you about. I think you would make a great interviewee.

See you at Christmas I hope, biologico.

Con molto affetto

La tua figlia

A day in the life of a fashionista

Posted on November 1, 2011 by helena

Ever wondered what fashionistas do? Yes, me too. I spent a day as one earlier this week and have to say, it’s all rather exhausting.

First of all you have to spend hours deciding what to wear. Then you get to the event and think ‘shit, I’m over/under-dressed’. Then you have to try to work out what everyone else is wearing; High Street or designer?

I wore my one designer dress, Maria Grachvogel if you must know, I went to interview her a couple of years ago and ended up spending my monthly salary on clothes.

“Ha!” I thought. “At least they won’t be able to accuse me of being dressed head to toe in Zara, like I usually am.”

The panel event I was attending was organised by a designer clothing store called Symphony around one of the most celebrated fashionistas, or “fashion maniac” as Helmut Newton called her, of our era. She is an Italian called Anna Dello Russo, known affectionately as ADR.That’s her in the middle with the short gold dress. Picture by David Goff.

She is a wonderfully eccentric, positive, outspoken and amusing Italian lady, who apparently has an apartment next to her apartment in Milan where she keeps her clothes.

“Do you ever walk in there,” I asked her, “and say to yourself ‘I’ve got nothing to wear?’”

She looked horrified. “A woman who says that should see a psychiatrist, she is depressed.”

Then I asked her if she ever wore the same thing twice. “Never,” she said. I wanted to ask if she even changes her pyjamas on a daily basis, but would probably have been told that pyjamas are soooo last week.

We discussed a range of topics in front an audience, from what makes a successful designer to whether you should mix and match High Street with high end. Anna claims she does wear High Street, but that the one thing she will never do is wear cheap shoes. It was at that point that I realised that I had committed a fashion faux pas. My shoes are as cheap as they come, something I plan to radically overhaul. If I’m going to be a fashionista, I need the proper kit. Let’s hope Anna didn’t notice them.

Maybe if I can get people to call me HFP I have a future…?

La Belle Maison

Posted on October 27, 2011 by helena

Ever since we have been visiting our friends Norrie and Mary in the Savoie, I have been in love with a beautiful old farmhouse on the top of a hill in same hamlet as they live in. I call it THE house or La Belle Maison. It is actually very English in aspect I think, solid and imposing, with a tennis court and a view over rolling hills and a church (see below pic).

We always said to the owners that if it were ever for sale we would love to buy it. In 2009 they told us they did want to sell it, so we went inside to look at it and asked them how much they wanted it for it.

Sadly it didn’t work out, the price was too high and then they changed their minds about selling. So we left La Belle Maison and decided to rent it next summer instead.

Two days ago – a miracle. The lovely owner of THE house emailed to say that they do now want to sell, and that the price is substantially lower and, most crucially, she wants us to have it.

Yesterday we made an offer and it has been accepted. There is still a long way to go. We have to sell Sainte Cecile (not a popular choice with most of the children, although Hugo likes the idea of La Belle Maison in part because of the tennis court) and then there is the interminable French bureaucracy to deal with.

But at least we are one big step closer. Maybe we won’t be renting it next summer, but living there.

Harvest Festival

Posted on October 21, 2011 by helena

For about an hour this week, I could have been in Wiltshire. I went to Leo’s Harvest Festival at the church next to his school. The children sang hymns and harvest songs, we said a few prayers of thanks and the head of the primary school made a little speech.
As we filed out, I bumped into the (Welsh) headmaster and we had a chat about the hideous rugby world cup semi-final. Then I stepped outside into 40 degree heat and my illusion was shattered.

Rupert teases me about my obsession with Wiltshire. For some reason I have a notion that if we lived there in a large thatched cottage somewhere on the edge of a field, our lives would be perfect. I imagine driving the children to school along a windy road with high hedges either side and wild flowers in the ditches. Dropping them at the school gate and heading off to Waitrose to do the thrice-weekly shop before going home to work on my latest book in a office with central heating instead of air conditioning.

The reality is probably that we would be living next to a water-logged field, impenetrable without a boat for most of the year, that Waitrose would be packed full of people and utterly hideous, and that the roads on the way to school would be jammed with people with road rage and we would be broke from paying endless tax.

But until I try it, I won’t believe it.

Bea has a boyfriend

Posted on October 11, 2011 by helena

Baby Bea (almost 11) has a boyfriend. Rather confusingly he is called Leo, but apparently has lovely curly black hair and is very cute. They have so far carried out a rather Middle-Eastern style relationship, in that it was arranged, and they never really meet.

When Bea broke the news to me that she was no longer single, I asked her how she had gone about acquiring a boyfriend. “Well, we heard he liked me, and then Olivia made him,” she told me. Olivia apparently “made” him by telling him Bea was about to be asked out by someone else. That girl is so smart it’s scary. On the day Steve Jobs died her one comment was “does that mean Apple goods will become cheaper?”

Bea is on a bit of a roll. Last week was the class photo. “Can we have the pretty girl in the middle please?” asked the photographer. Bea was thrilled, as was, I should think, Leo, even if he was bullied into the “relationship” by her older sister. Olivia is on to her second boyfriend, having been chucked the first one, the son of one of Olivia’s favourite teachers at school. My friend who works at the school told me that said teacher apparently told her son that he had “blown it”.

“All other potential daughters-in-law will pale in comparison to Olivia,” she said to him. The poor boy is only 12, but his mother is confident he will never find anyone as good again. And secretly of course, so am I. Although I can’t help feeling that if she really wanted him back, she could have arranged it. Or maybe got her sister involved…..

The new Lampard?

Posted on October 3, 2011 by helena

Last week, in fact most weeks, was dominated by sport. First Leo became a class rep at school and proudly shared with us the suggestions he is going to make to improve the life of his classmates.

First up, change the astro-turf pitch to grass. Second, create a cover over the football pitch so you can play during the hot summer months.

“Do any of your suggestions,” I asked him, “not involve football?”

He thought for a moment and then said: “Good point.” I’m sure we will see some rugby and cricket suggestions too.

Last night we watched Chelsea v Bolton. Frank Lampard scored a hat-trick. There are few things that make Leo and I happier than Lampard playing well. For Leo he is an integral part of the Chelsea team he first fell in love with a few years ago, along with John Terry and Didier Drogba. For me, he represents a side of football that I love and that you rarely see nowadays.

Lampard, who played his 350th game for Chelsea last night, comes from footballing stock – his father played for West Ham. His best friend is John Terry, the Chelsea and England captain. When he scored his hat-trick, he held up three fingers and looked to the sky, a gesture he has taken to since the sad death of his mother a couple of years ago. He is what I would call a proper bloke and you get the impression that his team is like his family, not just a place he earns lots of cash.

On the other end of the scale you have spoilt brats like Tevez, the Man City player who refused to play last week. Boys who are paid more than the GDP of some small countries and behave like divas. They take the soul out of the game and their teams. Say what you like about Abramovich, but he has kept the spirit of Chelsea alive, even if he has pumped millions into it.

It will be a terribly sad day when Frank (now 33) finally retires, but maybe there is a young boy out there watching, who loves Chelsea and longs to be the new Lampard? Just as soon as he’s sorted out the astro-turf issue.

Solvitur Ambulando

Posted on September 27, 2011 by helena

When we lived in France, we would go for around three walks a day. One mid-morning, one late afternoon and one after dinner. Mostly we would up to “the cross”, as we called it, the end of the small road we lived on, marked by a metal cross at the edge of a vineyard. On this walk we would walk over two small rivers and pass our almond orchard. We would often (on the mid-morning walk) run into the postman, who would stop for a chat but then take our post home anyway to save us carrying it.

I hadn’t thought about these walks for a while until Rupert woke up the other morning and said “I’d like to go for a walk to the cross.” It was the weekend and I think he was wondering what we could do for the day. The heat is still pretty unbearable and so there really is a limit. It’s basically the mall, or stay at home or drive to Dubai and go skiing, in a mall. Faced with those options, a walk to the cross seems like heaven.

I think one of the most unsettling things about living abroad is the constant question of ‘when are we going to go home?’ It is becoming more and more difficult to make any kind of decision. The longer we stay here, the more complicated it becomes. The kids are now all in the British School where they seem to be blissfully happy. In fact Olivia says she won’t leave here until she has finished school. Bea is literally blossoming and comes home every day with house points. Leo is just about to get in to (fingers crossed) the football, rugby and cricket squads so will be utterly content.

As for us, well things are fine, obviously we can’t walk to the cross, but we do have more time to hang out with our children because the lovely Nirosa does all the domestic stuff, leaving me free to read Winne-the-Pooh (genius book), play tennis and write. I remember my stepfather once advising me never to move in with a boyfriend “because you won’t leave until it gets really bad”. Which I suppose is the case with us and going home. And unless we fall foul of the (sometimes less than predictable) law or disaster strikes, I can’t see it ever getting really bad.

There is that Latin saying, Solvitur Ambulando meaning ‘it is solved by walking’. I remember we used to chat about problems on our walks and often come up with solutions. When I walk alone I come up with plots and ideas for the book. We do walk now, but instead of rivers we cross major road intersections and instead of our almond orchard we walk past a royal palace. And of course one of the major topics of discussion is how long to stay here. Most often we come up with the same conclusion. A while longer.

The cross will have to wait. The good thing is, even if we don’t go back for another ten years, chances are it will still be there.

The lovely Jeremy….

Posted on September 16, 2011 by helena

I was at university with Will Carling, who used to be the captain of the English rugby team, back in the days when it was all amateur and there really wasn’t any money involved, just occasional glory.

Will went out with Iona, my best friend at uni, and we watched his first game for England together. After the game he called us to tell us how amazing the atmosphere was. Iona knew all about rugby, her father had played for Scotland. I knew nothing, but was utterly mesmerised by one of the players; a certain Jeremy Guscott, who ran up and down the pitch with the grace and speed of a leopard. I kept asking Will to introduce me, but he never did. Last week, I finally met him.

He is here in the UAE for nine weeks working for the TV channel OSN, commentating on the Rugby World Cup which is happening in New Zealand at the moment.

We met at a hotel in Dubai, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Twenty years is a long time. OK, he has changed (haven’t we all?) but he is still lovely, if a little more portly than he was in the days he played for England. We talked about rugby, football, golf (his passion nowadays, he plays off 10), kids, tennis, face cream (classic quote, he told me uses cream because “they say black doesn’t crack, but it does), motivation, books and England’s chances in the World Cup.

It was a lovely chat, he is still very cute, but not as devastatingly gorgeous as he used to be. I guess being an ageing sports star must be a bit like being an ageing film star; you look back on pictures of yourself in your prime a la Sunset Boulevard and think about how gorgeous you once were and how you will never be that sexy again. Which is why being a writer is such a good idea. Because, all being well, your books only get better.

Having said all that, I still wouldn’t kick Jeremy off the sofa….

La rentrée

Posted on September 5, 2011 by helena

I am at home today in order to focus on what the French call la rentrée and what we know as going back to school. It is a big day for the Wright/Frith Powell children. Olivia moves up to Year 8, Bea starts senior school (Year 7) and Leo moves to the same school as the girls, the British School Al Khubairat, joining Year 4.

When we moved here three years ago they were in the French system. That seems like a different world now. A world full of hideous French homework and no school uniforms. Much as I love a bit of liberté, the thought of the girls fighting over a pair of leggings for the next ten years is enough to make me lose the will to live.

Rupert and I took them to school together. I used to hate going to new schools, mainly because of my stupid surname, which the teacher would invariably get wrong and everyone would laugh hysterically. See how well I married? Not much to get wrong with Wright. If any of ours were nervous, they didn’t show it.

There was one dodgy moment when we walked into the main reception along with a few hundred other children and I saw Bea wobble, but then her best friend bounded up to us and all was well.

The girls quickly went off with their friends and we took Leo to the gymnasium where the new primary school children were gathered.

“What year are you?” asked the friendly organiser.

“Year 4,” I replied.

“You might do quite well this time around,” said Rupes.

We left Leo in the hands of his teacher Mr Jones and came home. I am trying to imagine how they are getting on, and what they will have to tell me when I collect them. I am also so excited at the prospect of time alone that I have planned several hundred things to do in the few hours they are away such as have coffee with a friend (this is how some people LIVE), write my book, watch the US Open, sort out my emails, wash my hair and have a sleep.

But mostly I will be thinking about my little English schoolchildren, and hoping they are having a good rentrée.

Travels with a yogi

Posted on August 25, 2011 by helena

We went on holiday with four children and a yoga teacher. Ria, as our teacher is called, is also a good friend. I have known her since we first moved to Abu Dhabi. It was Amanda, a friend I was in touch with via email before we even got here who suggested I go to her class.

“She’s amazing, and has the best body ever, you just look at her and you’re motivated.”

So off I trotted to Ria’s class and she was right, I was motivated. But not just motivated to change my body shape. Ria is a true yogi in the sense that she is also very keen on the spiritual side of things. At the end of every lesson she would tell us to focus on our innermost desire, something we wished for, and visualize it happening. I would think about the novel, to the extent that when it finally came out, I gave Ria a copy of it. She very sweetly burst into tears. Maybe it was the prospect of having to read it.

I am pleased to say that this spiritual influence has now affected my children. We did lots of yoga there (see above) and since their week with Ria, not a negative thought is allowed. “Look for the positive,” Bea urged me the other day when I got woken up at 6am by Leo slamming a door. “Maybe you were meant to wake up early to do something special.”

“Don’t worry about the future,” said Olivia when I told her I had been fretting in the night. “Live in the now.”

Leo is similarly smitten, and the most dedicated yogi of them all.

Hugo and Rupert seem less convinced, but I am hoping that eventually this new zen-ness will get to them too, and we can all live blissfully ever after. With Ria, of course.